It just feels like yesterday, when almost all of us were in denial that a Nokia Android phone could exist, but Nokia has put forward its boldest bet ever, especially at a time when it has been acquired by Microsoft, a company that has been at odds with Google since forever. Anyways, the device was revealed to much excitement and curiosity at the Mobile World Congress event, and eventually arrived in India just few weeks later. We had unboxed the device and also showed you how to root it and get Google Play services and apps on it, but as you might have guessed by now, we were curious to find out more about the device over the course of our usage. So we made a few videos to showcase what we found and learnt, skip past the break to find them.
First and foremost, the single most highly requested feature to show case was How to side load Android APKs on the Nokia X. Yes, the Nokia X, without any setting to change, supports sideloading of Android APKs. Unlike BlackBerry 10, no modification is needed and you can install them right away by downloading from the browser. To know more, watch this video –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJpaSQ-a0aQ
As you could see, the side loading is pretty straightforward as a process, but you know what’s not straight forward on the Nokia X? Multitasking. Yes, there is no clear way of performing multi tasking on the Nokia X. Apps do run in the background, but if you quickly want to close some, there is no option. The fast lane acts as a list of apps you recently used but other than clearing items on a long press, it does nothing. Mainly, it cannot close apps, and the only option you are left with is to dig inside the apps settings and force stop, if you are considering saving some RAM on a 512 MB device, which is highly understandable.
But funny enough, we found a way to make the default multitasking tray to show up, especially on a device which has a single capacitive button that performs only two actions – back and home(on a long press). All you have to do is, download this app called “Multitask Shortcut” on the Google Play Store. Install it and you are all set. You will be able to swipe away the apps, just like you do on any Android phone, here’s how –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzSBx7O9ulA
Moving on to the next highly requested feature to showcase on the Nokia X, custom launchers. Yes, the default Nokia launcher, called the N launcher, looks like a mashup of Windows Phone and the more recent Asha/N9 UI. It is meant to address the familiarity factor that was lacking on previous Asha devices, they all looked like a N9, but they had to look like Windows Phone so that people aspiring to get a better phone from the same company can do so. But not everyone likes it, and this phone is basically Android all the way, so why not change the looks? That’s the underlying philosophy of an open source operating system right? Choices. They are aplenty and we tested out some custom launchers to see which fits best with the stringent amount of resources we had at our disposal –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMyX7e7BiAM
And finally, we have yet another in-depth walkthrough of the UI of the Nokia X. It will take you through everything that we encountered while using the phone for an extended period. Right from the lock screen to the default apps, we try to explain how it works when you actually use the phone, like the notifications part, which is very weird, and how fast lane works. You can watch the 20 minute video here –
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG3vAcQDZG4
And that brings us to the end of our videos, well at least of the ones we have posted so far. There will be more to come, as we expect to complete our review very soon. While these videos may have given a fair idea about the Nokia X already, you better stay tuned for our review, where we will deliver the verdict on whether the Nokia X is the entry level phone to get, or not. Meanwhile, let us know what you think of the videos above in the comments section below.